AI experts gather at WAIC's AI industry cluster forum

Government officials, academicians, and industry leaders from across China's Yangtze River Delta region gathered on Sunday at the 2026 World AI Conference to forge deeper collaboration in building a globally competitive AI industrial cluster.

The Yangtze River Delta AI Industry Cluster Empowerment Forum brought together representatives from Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui provinces to unveil initiatives aimed at transforming the region into a powerhouse of AI innovation and commercialization.

Wu Wei, executive vice-mayor, emphasized the region's pivotal role in China's AI development. "The Yangtze River Delta is one of China's most innovative regions, concentrating one-third of the nation's AI innovation resources," Wu said. "We will concentrate our efforts on tackling core underlying technologies, striving to see more innovations emerge from zero-to-one breakthroughs in the region."

"We will work hand-in-hand with partners to build a collaborative community for basic research, forge a new pattern of industrial synergy, and create new bridges for science and innovation capital," Cheng Peng, Party secretary and chairman of Yangtze River Delta Investment Co Ltd, said.

Jason Slater, chief AI, digital, and innovation officer at UNIDO, proposed integrating the Yangtze River Delta with UNIDO's global AI initiatives. "This would enable the region to actively participate in global AI standards setting and international governance, exporting replicable industrial practices to empower global digital industrial development," Slater said.

Mao Junfa, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and honorary dean of Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, stressed the symbiotic relationship between integrated circuits and artificial intelligence. "IC foundation and AI mainline complement each other," Mao noted. "We must coordinate collaborative research to ensure AI's underlying support through independent and controllable integrated circuits."

A highlight of the forum was the joint release by economic and information technology departments of the four provinces and municipality of the 2026 Yangtze River Delta key products and processes application list, which covers technology R&D, pilot verification, and mass production and demonstration.

The forum also included a roundtable dialogue featuring investment platform executives and leaders from Cambricon, iFlytek, and Unitree Robotics, who discussed breaking down regional resource barriers and capital misallocation to build a normalized industrial collaboration system across the delta region.